So I’ve always recommended the Heltec kits as a good entry-level kit but I can’t anymore due to issues with the USB->UART chips in them. What I originally chalked up as a mild annoyance has now proven to be a safety concern.
I’ve had 11 of them total. Of those, two had the USB->UART chip fail within the first week. Everything else still worked, so I was able to repurpose them as “repeaters” and manage them over LoRa. Firmware updates were a brute since I had to crack them open and use an external serial connection, but, still, I was willing to continue recommending them as entry level kits.
Cut to today and that is no longer the case after my everyday carry node decided to self destruct in a way that I am very fortunate wasn’t a fire.
I woke up and noticed the charge light was kicking on and off in a weird cadence. Clicked the button to see if it was even running (it was) but the battery was down to 30%. It was also hot. Very hot. It’s uptime was only about 5 minutes which was also odd.
So I unplug it and crack open the case. Everything on the board looks normal, so I pull the battery and hook it into USB. As I feared, it didn’t enumerate at all. Another one down, I sighed. But then things got worse. As I was holding the board in my hand (still connected over USB), I notice my finger started to get painfully hot. The hot component was the USB-UART chip.
On a hunch, I hooked my USB-C power meter inline with the cable, put it back on the USB charger it normally uses, and lo and behold, it was showing 9V. To rule out the USB charger, I tested it with another one of my Heltecs with a dead UART chip, and it was a steady 5V as expected.
So my best guess is the USB-UART failed in such a way that the data pins triggered the wall charger to go into quick charge mode and destroyed it with an over voltage. I’m genuinely surprised the battery didn’t catch on fire as hot as that chip was getting since it was right on top of the battery inside the case.
You won’t regret it. The T-1000E is my EDC and it’s great.
Nice. Some reviews complain about the range/sensitivity, but it’s hard to gauge what their expectations / comparisons may be.
My (now former) EDC is a basic Heltec V3 with its little “default” antenna in the HT Pocket case. I added a keychain lanyard and it lives with the key fob for my car. The range on it isn’t the best because of how the antenna is inside the case and up against the board (which makes it semi-directional) but it was good enough. As long as it’s as good as that, I’m content.
I’m not sure what their comparison is, but the 1/8-wave antenna in the 1000E is plenty strong enough. My current ground-to-air distance record of 90+ miles is with someone in a plane who had a 1000E. It’s loads better than my Heltec V3, and out-performs everything i have except for the base stations with specialized antennas.
Excellent. I’m excited. It should be delivered tomorrow.
Question: Is the case able to be opened at all? Like, if I wanted to pull out the i2c and a power + ground to a second set of pogo pins? Was just thinking that the only thing I’d miss is the ability to send canned messages from the device. The 2.7 firmware lets you do that now with the one-button navigation. Thinking something like a 3D printed sleeve that has a little i2c OLED screen and maybe an extension of the user button
The new firmware is awesome! The ability to send basic messages is what ive been wanting for a while.
Yeah, same. I never could find a good case that was small enough for what I wanted for an EDC but also had space for a rotary encoder. Then the 2.7 firmware comes out with the 1-button navigation and now it just works. A little awkward to get used to, but nice that I don’t have to make the thing bigger to accommodate a rotary encoder.
If you open the case it’s a one-time deal and it won’t ever be water resistant again. But even without water resistance is still an amazingly compact and well-engineered device.